British Airways, IBM, Swissair (represented by Atraxis), and Materna Information & Communications have completed a successful interoperability trial of self-service kiosks. The tests demonstrated that different airlines can share kiosks designed to the IATA Common Use Self-Service (CUSS) standard, and pave the way for wider use of the increasingly popular self-service method of check-in.
In London, the British Airways kiosk platform built by IBM launched a screen offering a choice of airlines. A user selected either British Airways or Swissair by touching the airline’s logo, and then checked-in with the appropriate airline. Afterwards, the kiosk returned to the multi-airline screen. In a reverse trial in Dortmund, Germany, both airlines’ applications were launched on the Swissair kiosk platform built by Materna Information & Communications and Wincor Nixdorf.
British Airways’ Senior Project Manager, Peter Stanton, said: “We expect 3 million passengers to check-in via our 180 kiosks this year. Today we have kiosks installed at over 40 airports across Europe. The advent of shared kiosks will allow us to offer this time-saving facility to more passengers at more airports.”
Mike Hulley, VP Travel & Transportation, IBM, said: “We have now proved that multiple airlines can share kiosks developed to the IATA standard by different vendors. This will help airlines and airports to save space and maximize return on investment, while giving more passengers the self-service option.”
In addition, British Airways has placed a follow-on order for 26 new generation kiosks from IBM. The latest batch of kiosks will be deployed at UK and European airports by the end of October. British Airways recently introduced an additional self-service feature - Executive Club members who have checked in in advance via the British Airways Website can now pick up their boarding pass from a kiosk when they arrive at the airport.
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